Ren'Py - Another Chance [v1.43] [TimeWizardStudios]

Nice artwork and interesting story. My only gripe would be that there are almost too many choices in the story that can lock you out of paths without you knowing. Wish there were more scenes with the mom!

TLDR: Solid game but not really animated and it has way too much story compared to porn content.

Game could've been a 5/5 but the developers, TimeWizardStudios, are too focused on the story. Also, let me state this game only has 1 animation. Everything else is just CG with 2-3 frames. I wouldn't consider it animated. (BJ pose with mouth on entrance then 2nd frame is a deepthroat). If this game was animated as expected, it'd be a top 3 in the site for me.

The characters and story itself is great but the game is so story-driven that it's excessive. Everything has dialogue which detracts from the player experience and makes interactions or snippets of story content from items feel insignificant or worth missing since you skip everything else.

Ideally, players shouldn't need the in-game walkthrough. Things should be intuitively guided but the game design here is a bit weak. Nonetheless, the in-game guide is a really good system and quite convenient. Too much clicking to get around the map and content.

The game is well-coded and the art is great. Beginning is a slog to get through. Even though you can jump quests and set game/route-changing decisions via the menu, it's still quite annoying knowing that your current run may exclude you from some routes.

v1.27

4.5* - gameplay is alright (fast mode is a must), good ingame quest guide, the art is great and H-scenes are pretty hot, not a lot of them though. Written well too, conversations feel real and are entertaining.

I'm sure for those who followed the development the game feels different, but this was my first playthrough, so here you go.

What actually pushed me to write the review is the setting and overarching narrative about "another chance". I sincerelly hope that the dev no longer feels the way he projected it on the protagonist about his "loser" self. Especially now that he has this project going on. Such way of thinking is just depressing to consider at any age, let alone in mid-twenties, where the protagonist supposedly reached a dead end. Don't wanna go existential here on the forum for fun stuff, but if somebody who's reading relates to that - talk to people who are willing to listen. Or to a therapist, if you're a fancy one. Just dig a bit deeper and get an outside look

This game has been in development for 3 years now, but you'd never tell by the amount of H content, and half of it that's there isn't repeatable in-game, you have to view in the gallery if want to repeat (this is a huge negative imo in sandbox games, having in-game repeatable scenes is a good way to feel like you've made progress). The lack of H content makes the game feels like a very pretty get/fetch simulator with no reward.

The game does a lot of things well but at some point I got tired of playing debug simulator for the dev. I like the art style and some of the characters are alright, but the gameplay is just mind boggling.

Great art, good setting and interesting characters/dialogue. There is potential for a great game in there, the dev clearly has talent.

Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is horrendous. As others have stated, it really makes no sense, way too many lockouts and lack of direction, no real ability to pick a girl and do a route because you're just forced to do fetch/time sink quests to get drips of actual content---and even there years into the project there really isn't much.

This game reminds me of late 80s/early 90s adventure games that would require strategy guides/walkthroughs, lots of different saves, and many playthroughs to get through. Except those were at least complete games, and obviously didn't have the benefit of modern QOL options. There's really no reason for the gameplay to be so poor in this.

Ordinarily I'm against remakes for active projects, but in this case, the art is good and the ideas for the characters and setting are good, so dev might want to consider utilizing ren'py for a proper VN style game. There's not that much content to begin with so it probably won't take long to just remove the timesinks, add actual progression and quest tracking, and start adding lewd scenes and expanded the sexual content, which let's be honest, that's why people play these games.

The routes need to be independent rather than forcing the player to go through everything as well. Maybe cut down the LIs if the dev doesn't think that's feasible, and focus on 3-4 of them, with their own personalities and styles. There is already a hint of that, just need to lean into it.

A 2 star rating is low, but I don't mean it to be harsh, it's just the current state is not as good as I think the dev is capable of. Seems like a first project and learning as they go along though, so I think it can be improved. Good luck!

Another Chance is a mixed bag of a game. The art is great and getting original 2DCG in a porn game is always nice. There are a few issues with the game overall though.

The good points of the game are definitely the art and the writing. I love the western-style hand drawn characters. A great feature that I love in Another Chance is the x-ray ability. Being able to see the women nude in different poses based on the location they're at is very hot. Plus, the sex scenes are very well drawn. The writing is also very good. Every character has their own personality and I believe everyone who plays will find at least a couple of them to be very interesting.

The biggest negative I would attribute to the game is the lack of sexual content versus the amount of quests you have to do. Most of the quests in the game lead to zero sexual content. It also locks you out of some content/choices if you don't do things in the correct order. I think half of the girls in the header on F95 have no sex scenes for them outside of dream sequences or simple teasing.

Another Chance definitely has potential. However, it has been in development for three years and right now there just isn't enough in the game for me to give it anything higher than a three star rating. There's hope that it has just been a slow burn to this point and the next year or two of updates will contain a lot more sexual content, but as a porn game it right now doesn't have enough porn to justify the amount of time you have to sink to get through all the quests.

Another Chance [v1.27] review

Genre:
Branching story sandbox comedy dating sim

WARNING:
PLAY THIS GAME WITH A WALKTHROUGH OPEN AT ALL TIMES or suffer the consequences.
The game's design is absolutely off-the-walls idiotic and you'll lock yourself out of content if you don't know exactly what you're doing. Spare yourself the unbelievable frustration of trying to play this game blind and just use the walkthrough. Trust me on this. I suffered so you don't have to.

When I first tried this game I was 100 % sure I was going to rate this game 5/5 because I was just absolutely floored by the writing.
This game features perhaps the strongest writing I've ever encountered in the lewd gaming genre. It's intelligent, funny, heart-warming, realistic and multi-layered.
The game is filled with clever comments about the things you observe and interact with which makes clicking on stuff an actual fun experience. (When observing vending machine: "This is a machine that lets you exchange money for food - a food whore". I'm dying )
The different characters feel like real people and have unique speech patterns and personalities.
I love how some of them like it when you're being kinda mean to them and teasing them and will lose respect for you if you're trying too hard to be nice to them for no reason, while others who maybe aren't as used to attention will melt if you're just being nice to them.
They'll get jealous, fight with each other and react in believable ways to the things you say and what's happening around them.
Whoever wrote this has a deep understanding of the feminine psyche and brings all aspect of it to life in a believable way. And then tops it off with humor that ranges all the way from sublte to hysterical and absurd.
It's absolutely brilliant and I had plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

But then I started to noticing the game design. And boy was it downhill from there.

There's branching choices but there's absolutely no way of knowing when you've made a banching choice or what the consequences of said choices are.
The triggers/unlocks for certain events are hidden in very non-intuitive ways and you won't find them in a blind playthrough. You'll only get taunted by "There would be some cool shit here if only you did X first"-indicators. But what X actually is, is only vaguely hinted at (A greyed out picture or missing stat points). And by the time you're receiving this indication it's too late to go back. Or you'll have to find an earlier save and try things in a different order. Possibly losing hours of gameplay.
I've taken huge shits on games in the review section before for being "linear sandboxes" but this kind of game design is arguably worse. No, it's definitely way way worse. It's giving you impossible tasks and then taunts you when you fail them. Example: If you invite Jacklyn on a date when you first get the opportunity, it's too soon because you're missing the lust points for a sex scene with her and this scene will then forever be locked.

In my mind, the purpose of a sandbox is to enable a player to explore the characters or locations in the order they want, but this is not how this game works at all. In fact, the game actively punishes you for trying this kind of gameplay. There are multiple interdependencies along the branches that means you'll get suboptimal results in branch A if you havent advanced enough in branch B first. A character you haven't met will sometimes be mentioned because the game expected you to finish some other questline first.
And then there's the timeslots. I assume this mechanic is there to give some extra realism to the things happening, like it would be realistic that having a conversation with someone would take up some time. But when looking at a picture, or picking up a candy wrapper or looking at, but not using the vending machine also consumes the exact same time it just becomes absurd and self-defeating.

And next up: Quests. The game is trying to leverage some kind of Monkey Island style of mix-and-match gameplay where you combine items in clever ways to solve problems but the problem here is that there's a million items and 8 trillion ways to combine items with other items and locations, making trial-and-error in no way a feasible approach. You'll need to use the quest guide. But then what's the point of it all? I'm just doing the chores that the quest guide tells me to. Go to location X, use item Y on interactible Z. Is it fun? No. It's just an artificial hurdle there for no reason.

It's not often I say this, but this game would be vastly improved by just being a linear VN. The writing alone would carry this game if it wasn't being undercut by absolute trash game design.

And then there's the pacing. It's very very slow. You know those funny comments you receive when observing things that mentioned earlier? You're going to want to turn those off if you ever want to see a sex scene, or see where the story goes. This game is very time consuming, for seemingly no reason.

Branching choices and sandboxes rarely mesh well and this game really highlights why. All the funny and clever writing goes from being a positive experience to a boring chore when I'm forced to repeat it again and again in order to explore the different branches. This isn't "replay value" it's replay suffering.

All in all, this is like going to a resturant, being presented with a plate of Russian caviar, some A5 wagyu beef, a nice Champange and then watching the chef throw everything in a blender and then boiling it for 3 hours. It's got all the necessary components for something truly great, but the chef (game designer) is an incompetent moron with the cooking skills of a toddler. It just makes me want to scream and cry. This is truly the flagship of unnecessarily wasted potential.

Despite this game being perhaps the most frustrating experience I've come across here on f95 I'm still going to rate it 4/5 solely out of appreciation for one of the best writers in the business. This game is not average in any way, it's absolutely fucking brilliant but also absolutely fucking rage inducing trash and bullshit at the same time.

So is it worth the download? If you appreciate great writing and have a tolerance for slow-paced bullshit game design then sure, absolutely. But if not? I'm not so sure.

Just, weird. There's a bunch of scenes that are hot, and other's not so much, character arcs that stop suddenly, but the grind, man the grind. Protip, grab dollars whenever you see them, do not ignore them. Even so if you do that, you're still grinding on quest that take multiple days to complete, so i guess if you keep yourself real busy the scene pace isn't bad.

It's just that no new player is gonna know that. It's just a weird game, if you love reading and aren't the quick fap type then i can see how this is a 10 out of 10, for us other guys its tedious and uneventful, with all the clicking and searching, and time passing right before you can do the thing you want so you have to wait for the next day.

Hello, here are my suggestions to improve the gameplay . First, some "quick" changes :
- Fast mode should be the default
- Players shouldn't be able to start a quest that breaks another quest if done before (for example, the one that breaks the water dispenser or the one where we clean the bedroom)
- There should be an option between Hints and the Quest Guide with more precise instructions, to help players if they're stuck, without infantilizing them. Also maybe an option to show the objective of the current quest on the screen without having to open your phone constantly

But I think, on the long run, I would prefer the game to become similar to Being a DIK or Summer Heat where the gameplay would switch between VN style and free roam events and mini games. But with these last two staying confined within a few rooms for small and secondary quests and only, MAYBE, being partially or fully open world for big events/quests (and by that I mean not having to constantly go back and forth between the classroom, your bedroom, the kitchen, the computer room, the music room and the river just to collect a USB key). But also have a clear "quests" order, direction and distinct paths/routes.

Outside of this, I really enjoyed the game, the story, the art, the characters. Sorry for focusing so much on the negative but the gameplay totally ruined the game for me. I really hope you fix this because otherwise I think it's a great game. Thank you for your work and I hope you have a good day. I'll try it again next update

This game is fantastic. Each of the characters feels solidly developed and unique. It's a bit light on sexual content, but I'd count that as a plus, because when you get to it it feels much more earned.

The art is excellent, which can be seen from the screenshots, but the animations are pretty simple, which is a minor downside.

It is the first time I play this game and I must say that it is very good, the dialogues are good and funny, not too wordy, the art is cute and the characters are very well done, the fact of playing with a mc who is a incel and a weirdo I consider it something very interesting and I really enjoy his interactions with the other characters, it is very well done.

And speaking of "negative" things, for many the puzzles are a negative point or that it is a click and point game but tbh I like that in a game so for me it is not a problem, I understand that for some it is a problem but I don't think it's a reason to give this game a bad review, if I have to say something bad it would be that the (few) sex scenes that there are can be greatly improved, it's not something very fappable to be honest, they could be hotter and more perverted and the animations could be better, another negative point is that the quests are a bit confusing at times since the game doesn't differentiate between the side quests and the main ones (although one later understands what kind of quest it is) so they should add a type of menu or something where you can see what kind of quest you are doing

If there is one thing I would like is for this game to have its own I-patch or a version for subscribestar, anyway I played it with the patch that is in op and I must say that for the moment it's ok so not really a big deal issue

anyway great game with great writing and fun to read, and flora best girl.

Very clever use of illusion of choices, seems like every choice actually matter.
Great artwork and interesting story line, animation is a bit meh though.
It's not complete yet but overall I can tell it has a good potential!

That's one of the best games I've played. I have gone through hundreds but this one is fantastic. It has everything. Great art, great animations, engaging story, fun gameplay, even a quest select for people comming back to see new content and great "walkthrough" built in game. I'm playing pretty much every update great work!

Art 5/5
Story 5/5
Gameplay 4.5/5
Fapability 5/5
Music 5/5
DevSupport 5/5
Originality 5/5

TL/DR It is surprising how neutral I felt about this title based on how good the characterization and art is. There was just something incredibly disappointing about playing from the POV of a former incel wastrel who got another chance at life and shoved back into his shota body with a life re-wind.

Pros:
+Sprite art. Wow!
+Scene art was decent.
+ Some really lovable characters
+ Clever prose
+ Some real laugh out loud moments
+Stat progression system was fun (Though simple)

Neutrals:
The X-ray kinda cheapened the sexual progressions.
The music was pretty good- but the main musical loop was unbearably repetitive due to how short it is.

Cons:
-Playing as a lil bitch man-child MC doesn't make for very hot scene content. Watching this shota hump things was pretty underwhelming.
-Optional NTR content that was far more sexually powerful than the MC making my previous point even more prominent.
-Not enough scene content for the MC. Half of everything is chewed up by like rape shit, or voyeuristic shit
-There are a few rape scenes in the game.
-The progression system had runs of extremely unintuitive game-play
-Fetch quests as your primary game-play loop is not very fun.

First of all I want to say I like point and click games, but this game is madness. Some of the riddle are completely stupid. How to boil tea on a functioning stove? Stick a lamp into it. You made a mess and have to clean up, you have to click every single puddle to clean up, instead just once, it just wastes time. Also a lot of items only appear after you started a quest or progressed them enough. So you have to search trough the world again and again. Would that only happen when you complete a chapter or so that would be different, but so it's just wastes your time further. The writing is ok, there are still to many pieces missing yet to get a clear picture, so it is confusing.

The art looks great, but the h-scenes are a bit of a let down and are far to rare. Give us at least a few more glimpses here and now. Let us spy on people on the locker or in the bath. Yet it has x-ray vision but it's not the same.

The gameplay, the core of the game is just a confusing mess. The passing is bad and a lot of the character routes are exclusive to each other. Which forces you to play the mess gain to see it all, only now you know the answers to the riddle, which makes it utterly boring. Also for it's development time, there is not that much content. Yeah there is a lot of play time, because you are solving riddles and running painfully slowly trough the school, but that is not really content.

Slight edit: It still has some great moments under everything. If you got time on your hands and a lot of patience for it, give it a try, but use the quest guide to make it a slow VN.

This was really promising. The art looks nice, the story is pretty alright for a sex game. Then the problem came. The sex scenes are awful. It's not on par with the rest of the game and need a rework. Choppy, extremely amateurish and rushed.
The game could have been great, but the creator seems to have gotten bored with the project and is just milking it now.
Edit:
The game quality is still bad and is only getting worse. 1/5

I love the drawings and character designs. The x-ray option as well is a great choice. The quest help is very useful and easy to follow, and the writing is excellent. Excited to see this game develop further.

3 or 4 stars at best

Art is good
story is decent?
Good dialogues
Didn't see any bugs
H Scenes are ok but takes forever
Fetchquest

This is just a casual review and had a few hours of game. I'm not good with reviews so I'll get to the point which impresses and disappointed me.

Game does not have a deeper story though I like the options of choice matter. The number of clicks and fetching were just tiring. The H scenes takes forever to be seen. The character art I personally like. Story? I guess I like being nice to the girls and see which gives more stats.

3.5/5. If the gameplay was more forgiving, then it's probably a 4 - 4.5.

Nice art style.

And that's it.

There are tags on here for aheago, anal, BDSM, blackmail, creampie, dating sim, exhibitionism, female domination, handjob, humiliation, romance, sex toys, spanking, tentacles, vaginal sex, virgin & voyeurism.

After hours of play, I found *none* of them.

I think there was a sister masturbation scene in the shower, but it wasn't like MC got to participate really.

Porn games need porn to be porn games. That should go without saying. If this game has it - porn - I barely found it - again, just one scene - after hours of play.

So the 1 star is for the art. Nothing else worthwhile to see here, yet.